While her dream of becoming an Olympian has been delayed another year, Ottawa’s Vanessa Gilles is keeping optimistic and instead focusing on the beginning of her pro season.
Tim Nedow’s quest for the Tokyo Olympics is the ultimate solitary pursuit. That was the case before the pandemic, and it’s doubly true now. The Ottawa Lions Track-and-Field Club shot putter was on track to throw in front of 68,000 fans at the Tokyo Olympic Stadium this month. Instead, he’s often quite literally the only person training inside the stadium at Terry Fox Athletic Facility.
Triathlete Joanna Brown is using the pandemic as an opportunity to do something she hasn’t done in a very long time: relax.
The not-so-distant memory of the Scrubb brothers’ dominance isn’t lost on local basketball fans.
Beginning in 2010, Thomas and Phil won five national championships over as many seasons as the centrepieces of Carleton University’s juggernaut men’s team.
Now they’re keen on an even greater pursuit – getting Canada’s team back to the Olympic Games.
It was 2012 when an ankle injury sidelined a 22-year-old Farah Jacques. Forced to pause competing in track and field for a year and a half, she realized an itch for a specific goal – becoming an Olympian.
Out of all countries competing at the Olympics next year, Canada will have the third most athletes hauling indoor cycling gear from the Tokyo runway to the Olympic Village. There’s 13 Canadian track racers in total, making up the majority of the largest cycling team that Canada’s ever sent to the Games.
In July, fencer Kelleigh Ryan was supposed to experience the pinnacle moment of her athletic career when she’d at last make her Olympic debut at age 33. Instead, she was much less glamorously waiting for 1-800-GOT-JUNK workers to come clear out her apartment.
This year’s Olympic Games was supposed to be Alicia Brown’s curtain call.
Now those plans are out the window.
Samantha Cornett has announced her retirement from professional squash. Several different factors went into Cornett’s decision but the catalyst was the death of her father, Jack Cornett, in a cycling accident in 2017.
For para-swimmer Camille Bérubé, uncertainty is the challenge of the moment.
The two-time Paralympian, who races in the S7 class based on her impairment and in all five different strokes, is partially paralyzed in both legs. And while she’s overcome setbacks in her career before, the unknown circumstances of the 2021 games can still be hard.
The final paratriathlon event in the world before sporting events were temporarily shelved due to COVID-19 was the ITU World Paratriathlon Series race in Australia, where Ottawa’s Jon Dunkerley was hoping to begin a hot streak to score himself another Paralympic bid.
The Ottawa Sportspage’s monthly summary of sports news in the nation’s capital.
Like most potential Olympians, Eganville-born middle-distance runner Melissa Bishop-Nriagu had a hard time hearing the Tokyo 2020 Games were being postponed.
The road to the Tokyo Olympic Games is a foggy one at best during the COVID-19 pandemic, but for Mike Woods the global pause in action has offered up some silver linings.
Jessica Gaudreault’s team was one of the first groups of Canadian athletes to snag a spot at the Tokyo Olympics, but the goalkeeper for Canada’s women’s water polo squad sees competing at the Games a year late as potentially a blessing in disguise.
For Ariane Bonhomme, the news that Canada wouldn’t be sending a team to Tokyo was devastating. But with what followed just days later – the Olympic Committee’s decision to postpone the Games until next summer – she discovered a bright side.
While hundreds of Olympic and Paralympic athletes are now having to wait months to find out if they’ve qualified for the Games, Canada’s women’s goalball team has known they had a spot since December.
Sam Zakutney’s journey to the Olympic Games has not been simple, and, it will still be almost another year before he finds out if he’ll reach his ultimate goal.
Whether it be about doubles tennis or the coronavirus, Gaby Dabrowski has been making her voice heard.
Pam Buisa is the type of person who can’t sit still.
At 23 years old, the Ottawa-born rugby player balances work and school with an Olympic-calibre training program. She does this on top of being a student supervisor at the University of Victoria, where she helps students of diverse backgrounds apply for scholarships and bursaries.
Vincent De Haître was getting dressed for a bike ride on the morning of March 22 when he got a phone call explaining that he may have reached a fork in the road of achieving two of his longtime athletic goals.
The end of Ottawa native Grace St-Germain’s collegiate golf career with Arkansas University was cut short by COVID-19, but she’s excited to begin her journey into coaching.
The Ottawa Sportspage’s monthly summary of sports news in the nation’s capital.
Ottawa’s Luke Allan was named to Nordiq Canada’s special “prospects” roster in May.
Maisonneuve, Vaslet and Sterling were named to Hockey Canada’s National Women’s Under-18 Team Summer Camp.
Two-time Olympian Michael Tayler of Ottawa qualified for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics only two weeks before it was evident COVID-19 had spread across the world.
No corner of the sports community has been spared from the shock waves of COVID-19. As the standstill of the sports world hits the two-month mark, the best many clubs can hope for is that the long-term impacts of the pandemic remain just ripples.
In an attempt to course-correct the short history of professional basketball in the nation’s capital, the Ottawa Blackjacks are wagering their success on the riches of hoops talent from the nation’s capital.
The Ottawa Sportspage’s monthly summary of sports news in the nation’s capital.
Ottawa-bred fencer was finally set to make her Olympic debut at age 33, but vows to push on after Tokyo Games postponement.
Kelleigh Ryan’s journey to the Olympic Games is a tale of dogged determination and full-on devotion to a sport that dominates all aspects of her life.
